Through his first 14 NASCAR Xfinity Series races, Shane van Gisbergen has accomplished quite a bit, including winning consecutive races and forming a rivalry with another driver.
Saturday’s Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 250 at California’s Sonoma Raceway featured a late-race battle for the win between van Gisbergen and Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill.
On a restart with 11 laps to go, the two went head-to-head underneath the bridge and entered turn two dead even.
However, SVG forced the issue in the hard braking zone as his No. 97 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet slid up into Hill’s No. 21 Chevy, forcing Hill wide and creating a clear path for SVG to retake the lead.
It was the race-winning move for the former Australian Supercars champion, as he notched his second straight Xfinity Series win after winning last week at Portland (Ore.) Int’l Raceway.
This wasn’t the first time the two drivers have tangled.
Earlier in the season, the duo battled for the lead at Texas’ Circuit of The Americas, with van Gisbergen giving Hill a shot to the rear bumper on the final lap, allowing eventual winner Kyle Larson to skate away.
Van Gisbergen stated after Saturday’s race: “I hate racing and thinking like that.
“But to me, we’ve both taken a race win off each other now,” van Gisbergen said. “I didn’t go into the corner planning to take him out. Like, I wasn’t going to hit him off the track.
“But, I was gonna try passing him and I did everything I could. When he kept choosing the left on restarts, I was like ‘Oh, that’s surprising,’ because I chose the left on the first restart and it was a mistake. If I had the opportunity again I would have chosen the right every time.”
Sure enough, the door was opened for SVG.
“Soon as he chose the left I knew, ‘OK, this is a good opportunity to hang around the outside and force my way on to the inside at turn two.’ I didn’t take him out properly, I just made a hole and got through,” van Gisbergen said.
After the race, intentional or not, SVG did his celebratory drifting and burnouts behind Hill and his race car.
Hill spoke later on the restart run-in between the two.
“I’m gonna leave it to the keyboard warriors on this,” Hill said in his post-race interview. “I’ll let them figure out what happened. No matter what comment I say, it’ll be wrong.”
As Hill watched the replay, he chose to not voice his opinion.
“Yeah, I don’t know. I plead the fifth,” Hill said. “I’m not gonna say anything about it. We’ll just go on to the next one. Good, hard racing.”
Hill finished fifth and is second in the standings, 12 points behind Cole Custer.
